More Warriors

My second interlibrary loan copy of The Happy Warriors arrived from the University of Kentucky Library. On the first page of the text, penciled close to the inside margin of the page is the information that this 1958 edition was added to the library collection on 7/6/59, and that it cost $2.52. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell how many times the book has been checked out over the years--wouldn't I love to know! Still, it's something to think that this book has been in use for 50 years now.


I had requested another interlibrary loan so that I could include a few of my favorite quotes. An added benefit is that, after having read my review (below), John decided he would like to read the book. This one has a longer due date and is renewable, so we can look forward to his response to Happy Warriors right here at Icelandic Fever.

Early in the story the Oath Brothers, Thorgeir and Thormod, are shipwrecked in the Westfjords. Frozen and hungry, they come upon a remote farmstead and a woman answers the door to ask what they want.

"We ask nothing of any," said Thorgeir. "But we will have food to eat and fire to thaw our clothes and a place to sleep. And if you deny us these, let a proper man of your household, or more than one, come out and do battle with us."

The woman replied: "It has never been the way in these fjords that spent folk had to fight the peasants for shelter. You must be a stupid man."

And how about our friend Olaf Haraldsson/Olaf the Stout/St. Olaf, pictured in the previous post?

Olaf had come aboard that night...He expressed himself as those do who are in the habit of talking for many ears, and it was commonly thought that what he lacked as a fighting-man and in other manly parts he made up in eloquence and insinuating address.

Olaf talks of Duke Richard:

Out of fear he would now throw open his lands to you, and give you leave to harry French kings and crush them at pleasure, and of the land's wealth have what you choose, princesses and queens and other high-born dames gratis as desired. But that you may give yorselves up unblamed to all the sport that lies in victorious war, with slaughter, fire-raising, plundering and rape, Richard asks only this trifle in return, that you should receive baptism and the Holy Ghost and become Christians.

As I've reflected on this book it has grown on me more and more. I think I'll read it again, while I have the opportunity. It's a good thing that Laxness' books glow ever brighter on second and third readings (and so on), since I'll soon be out of English translations. If there are any readers out there with the means to fund new translations, I feel certain that the folks at Gljúfrasteinn would love to talk to you!

Paradise Reclaimed

Laxness, Halldór. Paradise Reclaimed. Translated from the Icelandic by Magnus Magnusson, with an introduction by Jane Smiley. New York: Random House, 2002. (Originally published 1960) 304 pgs.



Another Laxness character that I want to SHAKE--hard! Steinar has some lovely qualities (generosity, naiveté, a simple faith in himself, trust in others, and a very wry sense of humor). But: he is singleminded and simpleminded, and his simple faith can lead to unforeseen consequences.

The beginning of the book details Steinar's journey to greet the King of Denmark, and to present him with his white pony Krapi, the finest horse in the country. The King of Denmark is visiting Iceland in order to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of The Settlement and to give the Icelanders their constitution. Many Icelanders seem not to be duly grateful for this honor. After all, "despite the fact that they were the most indigent nation in Europe, all traced their ancestry back to kings." When Steinar meets the King, this engaging dialogue ensues:

Sheriff Benediktsson spoke up..."I crave your Majesty's pardon that our farmers all speak like this," he said. "They cannot help it. The sagas are their lifeblood." King Kristian replied, "This has just about convinced me that most kings would find it does not pay to argue genealogies with farmers here in Iceland. "

"Perhaps too many Icelanders felt that the gift [of the constitution] merely represented something which was already theirs by right...". This sentiment is also expressed, eloquently and concisely, by the poor farmer Steinar himself when he first meets the king: "I wish to proffer you the thanks of my district for giving us what is already ours, namely, permission to walk upright here in Iceland." Still he chooses to give the King his most valued possession, harkening back to the sagas and Audun's similarly selfless gift of a bear to the King of Denmark some 800 years earlier.

Steinar's growing relationship with Mormons shows similar anomalies. His first contact with a Mormon is when he happens upon one who is preaching his faith at Þingvellir, and is about to get soundly trounced for it. When confronted the Mormon replies, "I always stop when people are going to beat me up." Steinar befriends this Mormon, and their growing relationship dictates the action of the novel. When Steinar leaves his hapless and helpless family to visit Denmark, and subsequently leaves for Utah to seek out what the Mormons have found there, the reader is left crying "why, why?" Why leave your family to the lecherous and ill-intentioned landowner, Björn of Leirur; why give away your most valued possession, the pony Krapi that your children love so; why follow a whim with no thought for the future?

Laxness creates interesting, albeit frustrating characters, and his prose sings. How about this description: "she shut her eyes and threw herself headlong into the surf-topped ocean of laughter, where she was tossed from wave-top to wave-top until sorrow washed her ashore again and she opened her eyes."

I never regret reading Laxness, but I love many of his other books more than Paradise Reclaimed.